Cancer and the true meaning of beauty

I had to get a passport photo this weekend. When I was handed the processed picture, I couldn’t believe it was me, it was the worst picture I have ever taken. For the record, I take great driver’s license and passport photos, I have just been lucky – until now. Fortunately the girl doing the picture grabbed it from me and said “We can’t have this, this is awful.” At least she realized it wasn’t a true likeness of me. Imagine my surprise then when after having me pose a second time she handed me back what looked like the exact same picture and exclaimed that it was much better. I asked her how it was better and she replied that the shine was gone. So I have a horrible picture to submit for my passport, and what’s worse is that apparently it looks like me. I struggled with beauty like most girls do all through my high school and early adulthood. I wanted to be as attractive as I could and would examine all photos of myself looking for flaws; I seldom focused on the good things. I think to some extent we grow out of that as adults and I know breast cancer made me much kinder on myself. So, I’m a little disappointed that the picture affected me the way it did. Especially when I showed it to Sister, whom I was visiting in Toronto and all she said was you look a little sad. So now it seems everyone sees me as I look in the picture.

Breast cancer really is a cruel teacher. It teaches us that we are vulnerable, it teaches us that we need to rely on others, it shows us that we are not always in charge of our lives, and it reminds us that life is fragile. On the other side of the battle, we have learned how strong we are and we are presented with our own will to live and flourish. We also come away from the battle reminded of how valuable we are to ourselves and convinced that we are worth fighting for – all this despite not living up to our own standards of beauty.

Aside from this one little setback, I really have become less critical of myself and more appreciative of all that I am. In fact, I have even come up with my own definition of beauty:

What is beauty, but a joy of the heart, a delight of the soul, a soar of the spirit heavenward.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kathy-Ellen Kups, RN

Kathy-Ellen is a Registered Nurse living in Michigan. In 2003, Kathy-Ellen was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer. She was cancer-free from April 2004 until December of 2013 when it was discovered that...read more